Bleach Commentary: Ep. 172, Kibune Goes to War! The Violent Wind that Rages

This is the first in what I imagine will be a very long series of recaps for the English dub anime "Bleach".  Today in the anime world, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that "Bleach" is the biggest show around.  Its by far the most popular and easily one of the longest-running comic books and cartoon shows I think since the days of "Dragonball Z".  Its home to epic battles, a cast of millions, and more silly Japanese swords than you'd ever imagine in your darkest nightmares.  Of course, its also incredibly stupid.  Massively, monumentally, astoundingly stupid.  And that's why its awesome.

I won't even try to recap what's happened before - it would take from now until next Christmas and beyond to even try to give you guys any kind of background for the events I'm detailing here.  The "Bleach" universe is a very complicated world filled with dozens of factions and factions within those factions and roughly nine billion named characters both big and small.  Its a wacky wonderland of Zanpakutos, Hollows, Arancars, and stuff-lions come to life.  If you're lost now, I can never help you.  I advise you non-"Bleach" fans stop reading and move on.

I usually don't like to "judge" individual episodes of a show, but "Bleach" lately is so consistently goofy that I really can't keep my opinions to myself.  I'm in a situation like the Spoony One and his Wrestle Wrestle, we know the thing we're watching is stupid but its great because its stupid.  Its an emotional divide, to say the least.  I don't want to go ahead and say that an episode is good or bad, I'll simply go in and describe the amazing things I'm sure to see.  I've looked ahead at the manga:  "Bleach" is about to enter a really bizarre period of nonsensical plot developments beyond anything you've seen before.  We're going to have loads to talk about for years here.  So let's get to it:  Episode 172, "Kibune Goes to War! The Violent Wind That Rages"*

So right now in the "Bleach" anime, the show's development has hit a big of a snag.  The comic creator, Tite Kubo, took about five years to finish the current arc.  Even at the slow speed that cartoons are made, that simply wasn't enough for the anime and the comics to move at an equal pace:  the anime needed to do something so that it wouldn't overtake the manga.  The solution was... creative to the say the least.  Right in the middle of Ichigo's attack on Hueco Mundo, the plot is stopped for some kind of pointless side story that probably could never be properly placed in the chronology of the "Bleach" plotline.  Honestly this entire season, "The New Captain Shusuke Amagai Arc", has nothing to do with anything, and it might as well be a completely different show.

So the main thing that this side-story arc needs to prove to me, the audience, is that its worth watching.  Just a few episodes ago Ichigo was fighting for his life against Grimmjow, my favorite character on the show and also one of the most powerful Hollows in existence.  He was battling to save Orihime, and also the entire world right up against the Evil Army of the big bad, Aizen.  Aizen spent years planning out every moment of his strategy in perfect detail, so the fact that Ichigo is even still alive is amazing.  The very fate of the world was at stake.  Can the New Captain Amagai Arc keep up that level of intensity?

The answer is:  no.  Really, really no.  Last episode Ichigo was teaching a little girl the importance of eating her entire meal to show respect to the people who made it (what is this "Sesame Street"?), this episode we following the Soul Society's Squad 3 rescuing a runaway cat.  Since its a Squad 3 episode, we better hunker down and prepare for a long series of nobody characters.  Today we follow Mr. "Peek-a-Bangs", Izuru Kira, whose name I actually had to look up because of how minor this guy is.  I don't think we've seen him since the Soul Society Arc, and even there he wasn't exactly the most interesting or important of characters.  Izuru is concerned that his new captain, the titular Amagai, is going to completely remake his Squad.  He also hallucinates his former captain Gin, which is probably understandable.  If I ever saw a face like that, I'd probably be hallucinating too.

Anyway, as you might have guessed, I don't care.  I have no emotional involvement in the affairs of Squad 3, or any Squad really.  There's only three named characters in this group anyway, and two of them just appeared a few weeks ago.  The rest of this crowd are the lowest of the low in character importance, which is saying a lot considering that this show has a population large enough to fill a moderately sized city in the Midwest.  Why aren't we watching Squad 11?  They have twice the number of key characters and have Kenpachi Zaraki, one of the coolest dudes in this entire show.  If it were Kenpachi we were following here, I'd be much more interested.

So really nothing happens for a long while, a lot of dull talking, blah blah.  The new captain wants to reform the Squads so that they work together better (not a bad idea since last time we saw these guys they nearly descended into a civil war over just Rukia), then he gets drunk.  Amagai's failure to hold his liquor is not funny, and I fear never will be funny.

Then something happens.  Kira and the new Third Seat, Kibune, some guy with glasses that looks exactly like Espada #8, fall** into a trap filled with Hollows.  Finally some attempt at action!  Its only been... all episode!  Unfortunately its all low-level Hollows and there's no threat.  Some new kid named Shinta gets eaten by a Hollow, and Kibune wants to kill it.  However, Kira, for some reason is against this, and they start to fight.  You get to see Kibune's Zanpakuto power now:  it turns into a giant boomerang weapon.  Kira and Kibune's fight (the only interesting development of the entire episode) lasts about five seconds and ends quickly.  Turns out Kibune is completely insane... not much of a surprise.  Also Kira's silly candy-cane Zanpakuto seems to lose the battle of power.  In terms of character match-ups, this one is really low level.  Grimmjow could kill everybody here in a few seconds.  But its an even match, and for a moment I was actually interested in who would win.

Tragically since this is a side story I know that Kira can't die during the course of this storyline, or else it would ruin continuity with the manga.  I wouldn't mind seeing him die, it would level the cast a bit.

Everybody escapes and is safe, except Shinta, but who cares about him?  Then the best part of the episode comes in:  Mayuri!!  Mayuri, is for those who forget, that crazy scientist guy with a freaky mask and weird hat.  This guy is awesome, and cries over his lost Hollow samples and then abuses his daughter for being stupid.  I'm not entirely sure why Mayuri is considered to be on the "good side" since he's without a doubt one of the most evil characters on this show.  Anyway, apparently somebody without much brains tried to kill Kira and Kibune by leaving a trap for them by using the captured Hollows that Mayuri had collected FOR SCIENCE.  This plan had no chance to work (even Kira should be able to take some regular Hollows), but at least it gives the hint that there might be a major conspiracy here that might do something.

Oh and the little Princess girl with the lampshade-hat has sneaked into the Soul Society.  Then she's confronted by something.  (YAWN)  If she gets murdered next episode, this plotline might finally catch my interest, but for now I'm really worried.  Will this entire arc just be pointless nonsense filler episodes?  Can we have some action!?

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* This being an anime, expect a lot of really stupid episode titles.

** Its not clear to me how Soul Reapers can be brought to fall into a trap.  Just last season everybody on this show knew how to fly.  I don't know why these guys didn't just fly out of the hole and go to the bar for some drinks.  Then again, just a few seasons earlier, nobody knew how to fly, that whole ability was added inexplicably.  Did I mention that this show is stupid?